Tag: Book review

Review: Concordance to Sangharakshita's Complete Works (2024)

By Luke Penkett on Tue, 10 Dec, 2024 - 20:50

Review: Concordance to Sangharakshita's Complete Works (2024)

By Luke Penkett on Tue, 10 Dec, 2024 - 20:50

With this tome (1087 pages) Windhorse Publications completes its staggering publication of Sangharakshita’s Complete Works, all 27 volumes! One of the greatest joys of these volumes is the inclusion of previously out-of-print or never-before-published material such as various talks by Sangharakshita given in India in the 1980s.

The final volume, the Concordance to the Complete Works, is an invaluable, comprehensive, yet accessible guide, index, encyclopaedia, dictionary, as well as concordance. It is also full of quotations, as the publisher’s blurb states, ‘It answers...

Windhorse Publications

Review: Approaching Enlightenment: A Guidebook for Buddhist Ritual by Bodhidasa (2024)

By Luke Penkett on Wed, 30 Oct, 2024 - 10:08

Review: Approaching Enlightenment: A Guidebook for Buddhist Ritual by Bodhidasa (2024)

By Luke Penkett on Wed, 30 Oct, 2024 - 10:08

It is such a joy to pick up this book, see the stunning painting of Avalokitesvara on its front cover, be reminded of its artist, Aloka, who painted it in 1974/1975, and remember all the art work he has produced both at Padmaloka and the Norwich Buddhist Centre.

It is a beautiful meeting of minds. Aloka and Bodhidasa. Bodhidasa, after studying English literature, history and performance studies at the University of Sydney, teaches, leads retreats, and facilitates courses at the Sydney Buddhist...

Windhorse Publications

Review: The Promise of a Sacred World by Nagapriya (2022)

By Luke Penkett on Thu, 17 Oct, 2024 - 11:19

Review: The Promise of a Sacred World by Nagapriya (2022)

By Luke Penkett on Thu, 17 Oct, 2024 - 11:19

No dry, inaccessible, or tedious history, Nagapriya’s book The Promise of a Sacred World is a joy to read and digest as it not only ‘evokes a personal encounter with Shinran’ (5) through a series of meditations, and arouses our fascination with Amida, the Buddha of ‘boundless light’, ‘the source of liberation and of all existential value’ (49), with inspired readings of the Pure Land scriptures, it also draws our attention to key concepts, ‘concepts that matter...

Windhorse Publications

Review: The Dark Side of the Mirror by David Brazier (2019)

By Luke Penkett on Thu, 26 Sep, 2024 - 09:33

Review: The Dark Side of the Mirror by David Brazier (2019)

By Luke Penkett on Thu, 26 Sep, 2024 - 09:33

Sometimes a book comes along where the subtitle illuminates the title which would otherwise seem inexplicable. This is the case with one of David Brazier’s most recent publications: The Dark Side of the Mirror (2019) has as its subtitle ‘Forgetting the Self in Dōgen’s Genjō Kōan’.

The phrase Genjō Kōan is well-known to Buddhists, both East and West. Genjō may be translated as a sudden, wonderful appearance, whilst Kōan may be a spiritual problem or a spiritual question, and...

Neurodiverse Triratna

Autism and Buddhist Practice

By NDTriratna on Mon, 3 Jul, 2023 - 16:41

Autism and Buddhist Practice

By NDTriratna on Mon, 3 Jul, 2023 - 16:41

Here is a book that may be of interest to you, whether or not you are autistic around different aspects of Buddhist practice. It includes a chapter from our very own Prajnanandi. It would be of particular use to those looking to articulate more about their autism and how it works with Buddhism, or those who are interested in supporting autistic individuals.

The description from the publisher:

“This series of reflective accounts explores the benefits that Buddhist practice can bring for autistic individuals, and...

Buddhist Centre Features

Seeing It Better: A Review of 'After Cézanne' by Maitreyabandhu

By Vishvapani on Thu, 21 Apr, 2022 - 17:26

Seeing It Better: A Review of 'After Cézanne' by Maitreyabandhu

By Vishvapani on Thu, 21 Apr, 2022 - 17:26

After Cézanne,
By Maitreyabandhu,
Bloodaxe, 2019

Review by Vishvapani
Maitreyabandhu’s most recent poetry collection reflects on Cézanne’s paintings and is a subtle meditation on the possibilities of art and perception

The epigraph of Maitreyabandhu’s most recent collection After Cézanne is a quote from a letter the artist sent to Emile Bernard in 1904: ‘Talking about art is virtually useless.’ That challenges the fifty-plus poems in the collection, which all relate directly or indirectly to Cézanne’s painting and are generously...

Buddhist Centre Features

The Sound of One Hand by Satyadasa: Review by Vishvapani

By Vishvapani on Tue, 5 Apr, 2022 - 16:12

The Sound of One Hand by Satyadasa: Review by Vishvapani

By Vishvapani on Tue, 5 Apr, 2022 - 16:12

The Sound of One Hand
By Satyadasa
Yakhorn Press, 2022

Like Satyadasa I’ve been a part of the Triratna Buddhist Community for the whole of my adult life. He’s about a decade younger than me, but many of the Triratna experiences he describes in The Sound of One Hand are shared. Like me, David (as Satyadasa is called up to his ordination) grew up in the middle-class South London suburbs and had an Oxbridge education before pitching into...

Western Buddhist Review

Debating the Middle Way

By Dhivan Thomas Jones on Wed, 25 Sep, 2019 - 18:16

Debating the Middle Way

By Dhivan Thomas Jones on Wed, 25 Sep, 2019 - 18:16

Here we present a review by Arnold Tilley of a new book by Robert Ellis, founder of the Middle Way Society:

Robert Ellis

The Buddha’s Middle Way, London: Equinox, 2019, 320pp., £23 pb

review by Arnold Tilley

Much of the content of Ellis’s book concerns the Buddha’s Middle Way, yet seen as an instance of a purported universal Middle Way ‘which springs from the structural needs of human beings (and possibly other organisms)’ (p.281). Ellis’s formula for this universal Middle Way is expressed by...

Western Buddhist Review

Precision Dharma

By Dhivan Thomas Jones on Sun, 19 May, 2019 - 12:22

Precision Dharma

By Dhivan Thomas Jones on Sun, 19 May, 2019 - 12:22

Vajratara reviews a first-class new book on early Buddhist doctrine:

Early Buddhist Teachings

by Y. Karunadasa

Boston: Wisdom Publications 2018, 240pp, hb £22.50, pb £11, ebook

review by Vajratara

In a book market saturated with books about Buddhism, one may not immediately choose a book about early Buddhist teachings written by a Pali and Buddhist studies Scholar. However, though Early Buddhist Teachings goes over some of the same ground as other books about basic Buddhism, it offers a fresh and comprehensive overview that leaves us with a deeper understanding. Professor Karunadasa explains...

Western Buddhist Review

Philosopher Strikes Gold

By Dhivan Thomas Jones on Mon, 15 Oct, 2018 - 13:19

Philosopher Strikes Gold

By Dhivan Thomas Jones on Mon, 15 Oct, 2018 - 13:19

Another review – this time by myself (Dhīvan) on an excellent new history of Buddhist philosophy in India:

The Golden Age of Indian Buddhist Philosophy

by Jan Westerhoff

Oxford University Press, 2018, 326pp £30 hb

review by Dhīvan

In a customary gesture in books like this one, [1] Jan Westerhoff asks in his introduction what the purpose might be in his writing another history of Buddhist philosophy, given that those already available were written by such eminent scholars. In this case, the eminent scholars are Volker Zotz (writing in...

Tag: Book review

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